[1] The first edition was published by the World Publishing Company of Cleveland, Ohio, in two volumes or one large volume, including a large encyclopedic section.

It was edited by Joseph H. Friend and David B. Guralnik[2][3][4] and contained 142,000 entries, said to be the largest American desk dictionary available at the time.

[6] One of the salient features of Webster's New World dictionaries has been its unusually full etymology, that is, the origin and development of words and the relationship of words to other Indo-European languages.

The college edition is the official desk dictionary of The New York Times,[7] The Wall Street Journal,[8] The Washington Post,[9] and United Press International.

Webster's New World student and children's editions were produced for younger readers but were discontinued since 1996.